The government of Cambodia confirmed on Friday that it is planning to nominate President Donald Trump for the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize for his contributions to ending the nation’s hostilities with Thailand.
Deputy Prime Minister Sun Chanthol told reporters at a press conference on Friday — in which he expressed gratitude both for the mediation with Thailand and for Trump’s reduction of tariffs to 15 percent — that his country was planning to nominate Trump. Chanthol reportedly confirmed this plan in a text message to Reuters.
Violence on the Thai-Cambodian border erupted and rapidly escalated last week after Phnom Penh accused Thai soldiers of killing one of their troops in an assault along their border. The Cambodians retaliated, prompting a massive Thai rebuttal including the use of widely condemned cluster munitions. Thai authorities confirmed the use of cluster munitions after an outcry from human rights groups, insisting that Bangkok is allowed legally to use them because the country has not signed onto the international legal document outlawing them, the Convention on Cluster Munitions (CCM).
The conflict began in the context of a larger dispute over where the borders of each country begin. Cambodia defends the status quo, asserting the border established while the country was a French colony is the legitimate border. Thailand has for decades insisted that its territory begins far deeper into what Cambodia considers its land.
The abrupt outburst of violence killed dozens and displaced over 260,000 people before the leaders of both countries agreed to a ceasefire on Monday. The government of Malaysia, which holds the presidency of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), mediated talks between the two leaders that led to the declaration. The Trump administration reportedly played a major role in bringing the governments together and Trump himself threatened not to cut bilateral trade deals with either country if they were in a state of war with each other.
Chanthol, the deputy prime minister, used his press conference on Friday to highlight Trump’s role in the peace negotiations.
“I would like to thank His Excellency President Donald Trump for his personal attention in initiating and promoting a ceasefire between the Cambodian and Thai armies,” the Khmer Times quoted the official as saying, “and continuing to directly monitor the implementation of the ceasefire until there is permanent peace and normalization of relations between Cambodia and Thailand in the future.”
“In addition, His Excellency the President has also provided understanding for Cambodia, providing opportunities to continue to strengthen economic development and trade relations between Cambodia and the United States,” he added.
“His Excellency Donald Trump has shown great interest in Cambodia’s bitter history, as well as his willingness to help the Cambodian people achieve peace and to help Cambodia continue to develop,” Chanthol concluded.
As part of his overhaul of America’s trade relationships with the world, Trump had initially proposed a 49 percent tariff rate on goods coming from Cambodia. As with other trade partners, the White House offered Phnom Penh a brief window to negotiate the rate and establish a trade relationship more favorable to the United States, which resulted in Cambodia’s current 19 percent rate.
“This 19 percent rate, compared to neighboring countries, at this rate we can compete with all neighboring countries,” Chanthol explained during his press conference.
Trump tied the trade negotiations to the war in comments published last week on his website, Truth Social.
“Just spoke to the Prime Minister of Cambodia relative to stopping the War with Thailand. I am calling the Acting Prime Minister of Thailand, right now, to likewise request a Ceasefire, and END to the War, which is currently raging,” Trump wrote. “We happen to be, by coincidence, currently dealing on Trade with both Countries, but do not want to make any Deal, with either Country, if they are fighting — And I have told them so!”
Trump explained in an interview with Breitbart News this week that he considered it urgent to prevent the conflict from escalating and killing more people.
“They’ve had many conflicts and wars over the years, I guess it was a 500-year period. When I spoke to them, they said 500 years, and I said that’s a lot. But now it was raging and raging hard,” Trump stated. “People were being killed at the border — a lot. I said ‘Listen, we’re doing a trading deal’ — with Thailand I started — ‘we’re doing a trading deal and I’m not going to be doing a deal if you’re going to be killing each other.’ Then I spoke to Cambodia and said essentially the same thing.”
“Millions of people are going to be saved. Those wars turn out to be a disaster,” he continued. “Millions of people get killed. It’s total disruption — and it takes them 40 years to recover. But we were able to stop it before it really started although a lot of people have already been killed.”
Trump has already been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize two other times this year for his intervention in other conflicts. In early July, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu presented Trump with a copy of a letter sent to the Nobel Committee to nominate the American president for his role in supporting Israel in its ongoing conflict with the genocidal jihadist terror group Hamas and his attempts to bring peace between Israel and its neighbors.
The government of Pakistan also nominated President Trump for his intervention to prevent a war between their country and India.
“The Government of Pakistan has decided to formally recommend President Donald J. Trump for the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize in recognition of his decisive diplomatic intervention and pivotal leadership during the recent India-Pakistan crisis,” the government announced in June. “The international community bore witness to unprovoked and unlawful Indian aggression, which constituted a grave violation of Pakistan’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, resulting in the tragic loss of innocent lives, including women, children, and the elderly.”
Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.
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